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After returning from our trip to County Kerry, which is an Irish-speaking area of Ireland, I started doing some online searches for local Irish classes. To my dismay, none immediately became apparent. I found places where you can learn online, though, and I started to consider that. But one day, after yet another Google search, I saw an article from a local newspaper featuring an interview with Éilís Crean, a native of Co. Roscommon, Ireland. She planned to offer Irish Gaelic classes locally soon, and thus I began an email correspondence with her to find out more about the classes. Fortunately for me, Éilís (pronounced Ā-lish) is a patient woman and tolerated my myriad questions.

Tonight, the first official class begins. Since I would love to use some of the language in an upcoming novel, this is a perfect opportunity for me. And if you’re just interested in Irish culture and language, this would be a perfect opportunity for you as well. You can find out more about the classes here. We’re using Micheál Ó Siadhail’s book Learning Irish, so come along with us! It doesn’t matter where in the world you’re located since it’s available via Skype. We have people from all around joining including Northern Ireland, Atlanta, and Boston. It should be a lot of fun for all.

Elf

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

The Holiday

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It’s almost that time of year again. You know…resolution time.

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. For me, they’re that pie in the sky I’ll probably never reach because they’re too lofty and unattainable. Instead, I set goals. I set them high enough to be within reach but still a challenge. For instance, in 2011, I set a goal to read 50 books. As of today, I’ve read 37. I’m working on #38 now. While I won’t hit 50 books this year, it was a challenge to read as many as I did, and within those 38 books, two were 600–800 pages each (the first two books in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series). I’m proud of myself for getting so close to that goal. That’s approximately three books a month.

So what am I shooting for in 2012? Here are some ideas I have:
 

• Meal planning and eating out less. I’m terrible at this one. If I have an Achilles’ heel, it’s eating out. I come home tired and hungry, and if Will is home, he’s my enabler when it comes to eating out. It’s part of the reason I’ve packed on some extra pounds. It’s time to get it under control, which should correlate to getting my weight under control again.
• Finish another full-length novel. What’s considered a novel? It means 80,000+ words. Here we go again.
• More quality family time with Will. Since Summer 2010, he’s been working 50+ hours/week and taking classes toward finishing his degree. This means we’ve had less quality time together, and since he’s set to graduate in May, that’s soon coming to an end.
• Attend more MCRW meetings. I’ve been a terrible member all year, attending meetings when I felt like it. My writing chapter is a wonderful place to learn and grow as a writer, and I haven’t given it nearly the attention it deserves.
• Get over my fear of query letters. I stopped at about #16, which is kinda pathetic.
• Continue working out 3-4 times a week. My health will thank me.
• Read 50 books. I will make it this time!
• Finally travel to New York City. I’ve wanted to visit there since I was a kid. I think I’ve talked Will into it.

How about you? What are your goals for the upcoming year? What do you hope to accomplish? What would you like to be different for you in 2012?

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I hope life will return to semi-normal after the holidays. And since Will’s final tuition payment arrived in my inbox yesterday, I (hopefully) won’t feel broke anymore! We haven’t had debt since July 2007, but making those tuition payments for the past two years has felt like debt hanging over our heads. We’ve cash flowed every bit of it, and with multiple visits from Murphy, I am so over college tuition.

Merry Christmas (bah humbug)! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. And if you don’t hear from me, I’ll be back in the New Year…writing.

We’d hoped to start an adoption this fall. We even filed a pre-application, sure that we would move forward as soon as we returned from Ireland. But…we haven’t. Finances are one glaring reason, but there are others, too, that I prefer not to share. So for now, we’re holding off. We know kids are in our future. If anything, we’re more sure of that than ever. We’re fairly certain God is leading us toward adoption. Still, the timing seems not quite right. We feel as though maybe we’re getting a message that we’re not there yet. And so we wait.

That’s where we are. It feels like a good decision despite that pesky personality trait of mine that’s always raring to go at full speed ahead. One thing I can be sure of is that God’s timing is perfect even when ours isn’t. I take great comfort in that.

The trailer for the upcoming movie starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss was released this week, and I am stoked. I read the entire series earlier this year in just a couple of weeks, completely enthralled with this dystopian fiction, which I normally don’t care for. One thing I’m happy about is how different it is from the other hot young adult novel series…Twilight. In my opinion, the Hunger Games series has much more depth and a lot more layers. While it was initially geared toward the YA crowd (i.e. teenagers), as a 30-year-old adult, I found it to be vastly entertaining. I think you will, too, and I hope the movie doesn’t disappoint. Judging by the trailer, it won’t.

You see, every year, about 101 of you ask me if I’m participating. Ha! You’re funny. All of you.

I’m a slow writer, and NaNoWriMo strikes a fear in my heart like that of a stunned deer standing in the oncoming headlights. Or, if you prefer a Dave Ramsey reference, I feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. Every year, I toy with the idea of signing up, and every year, I back away from the website like the vicious anaconda that it is.

It took me about two years to fully complete The Stolen Lady. And I’m sporadically working on my new contemporary novel—in first person, no less—and while I’d love to tell you that the new project is trucking right along…it isn’t. I’m really struggling with my creativity right now, particularly plotting, and that makes moving a project forward rather difficult. But just like I did with TSL, I’ll get there with the new (untitled) work.

Speaking of TSL, when I attended a Bob Mayer writing workshop with my local RWA chapter recently, some of my writerly friends told me I need to start querying again. I queried a bit heavily for a while, and I managed to send out 16 of them. But after 16 (apparent and not-so-apparent) rejections, I fizzled out. They encouraged me to get back in the game because with the positive rejections I’ve received, surely the right agent could be out there waiting for me to submit. So I may start that up again. We’ll see.

One of the things I really took away from Bob’s workshop was the need to work on your weakest areas. This should be an obvious assumption, but I really needed to hear it. My strongest point is character development. Often, I can actually hear the characters talking in monologues in my head…or even having conversations with one another. (No, I’m not crazy. I promise.) I obviously have no problem envisioning exactly who I’m going to write about; it’s the what I have trouble with.

Bob also emphasized the importance of knowing whether or not you’re a pantser or a plotter. What’s the difference? Well, I’m your classic pantser. Basically, I don’t know what I’m going to write until it appears on the page. As the story progresses, it meanders and wanders and often surprises the heck out of me because I didn’t see this or that coming. A plotter plans the story out from beginning to end, often making full character sketches, outlining the plot, etc. Ideally, I’d like to fall somewhere in the middle. This is an area I simply must work on in order to get better.

By the way, if you ever have an opportunity, go listen to Bob speak. You can find his books on Amazon.com and BN.com, and he speaks all over the country at writing conferences, including the Romance Writers of America national conference.

You can check out my own contribution here.

I’m starting to think The Stolen Lady may be one of those books.

I put a lot of love and time and blood and sweat and tears into that book. And yet, what I’m hearing over and over again from the agents I’ve queried is that while the writing is good, it just doesn’t “fit” into today’s competitive market. One told me the book was “old-fashioned.” I’m not insulted. It probably is a bit old-fashioned. I prefer a book to be character driven rather than plot driven, and many romance novels on the market today are plot driven. It’s what’s selling right now. But styles and reader preferences change, so at some point, maybe TSL will see the light of day again.For now, though, I think I’m going to focus on something else.

I’ve been quietly working on a new novel, one I’ve already written a couple of chapters for and scrapped because the beginning just wasn’t right. Now, I’m trying something new: first person perspective. This will be a challenge because I won’t be able to get into the heads of the other characters. I’m pretty much stuck in my heroine’s head. I’m okay with that given the success Kristan Higgins has had with it. I’ve seen how it can work.

I’m notoriously bad at getting a novel started. I’m what other writers call a “pantster,” so I usually have no idea where the book is going until I’m deep into the story. And then I fly by the seat of my pants until the end. This time, I’m going to loosely outline as I go and see where that leads. What I’m hoping it will do is give me something to refer back to as I write and not forget where I was going in the first place.

So…here we go with the writing updates again! I hope you enjoy the roller coaster ride with me.